War, Peace, and Everything In Between
by taskforce
Summary: What happens when we are thrown violently out of our comfort zone? How do we cope when everything we have ever known is suddenly out of our grasp? The crew of the USS Killifish are about to find out, and get put to a test unlike anything they can imagine.
1. An Easy Watch

War and Peace: A Pokémon meets Silent Service Fic.

Author's note: For those of you who know a little about me, here we go. I've been suppressing a desire to write something like this somewhere for awhile. Just recently, I came upon an old, abandoned fic with a very smiliar premise. I was disappointed to see that while it was well done, it had stopped very early on. I decided that I would like to give it the chance it didn't get before. While all of the below writing is original, I cannot claim credit to the idea. I suggest looking at .net/s/4564869/4/ for the old writing if you wish.

_Dedicated to the 52 Still on Patrol: Pride Runs Deep_

* * *

Characters will be introduced by chapter of appearance.

_Dramatis Personae_

Crew of the _Killifish_

Lieutenant Commander Robert Clarkson, Commanding Officer

Lieutenant Harvey Bennett, Executive Officer

Lieutenant Anthony DiCamaro, Engineer

Lieutenant Richard Millunzi, Navigator

Ensign Jeremy Watson, Weapons Officer

* * *

_08 April 1945_

_100nm Southeast of Kyushu_

_Territorial Waters of the Empire of Japan_

The sun was just dipping below the western horizon as Lieutenant Anthony DiCamaro climbed the ladder up the inside of the conning tower to the bridge to relieve the watch. The ship, the _Balao_-class submarine _USS Killifish_, was cruising northward on the surface at a steady speed of eight knots, heading for the last remaining shipping channels of the war.

The off-going officer of the deck, Lieutenant Richard Millunzi, carefully scanned the horizon ahead with his binoculars, searching for any sign of traffic as the twilight deepened. "Night orders have us heading due north 'till midnight. Captain thinks that the Japs might try to send out a convoy."

DiCamaro grunted an acknowledgement as he began scanning the horizon as well. "Any contacts so far?" he asked.

Millunzi shook his head fractionally. "Nothing on radar or visual. Seas have been pretty calm; weather looks like it'll be clear for the night. Should be an easy watch."

Through the hatch below, they heard the faint echo of the ship's announcing system. "Duty section two, relieve the watch. Duty section two, relieve the watch."

The _Killifish_ had been at sea for two weeks after heading east from Midway on the twenty-fifth for the fourth patrol of the year. Responsible for sinking enemy shipping, the _Killifish_ had been sent to the southern end of the Japanese home islands to hunt the steadily dwindling merchant ships that braved increasingly hostile waters.

DiCamaro shook his head. The Japanese had to know by now they were dead; it was over. The fact that the _Killifish_ was two weeks into a patrol without sighting a single convoy was testament enough that the war was over. The Japs didn't have ships left to send out—the islands were effectively blockaded. While it was frustrating to not be able to find anything, it was as hopeful a sign as possible that they would soon be going home for good.

Millunzi pulled the binoculars from around his neck and handed them to DiCamaro. He reached for the sound-powered bridge circuit. "This is Lieutenant Millunzi; Lieutenant DiCamaro has the deck."

DiCamaro took the talker in his turn. "This is Lieutenant DiCamaro; I have the deck. Belay your reports."

Millunzi smiled amiably. "See you in a few, Tony," he said before descending down into the submarine. DiCamaro nodded his acknowledgement before returning his eyes to the horizon. The next six hours would be his.

888

DiCamaro yawned. With an hour to go until midnight, the seas were still as clear of shipping as they had been when he had started his watch, and the risen moon had illuminated barren seas. It looked as if the skipper's hunch had been wrong. Shifting his feet, he tried to settle into a more comfortable position on the bridge. Five hours was a long time to stand.

The bridge comm crackled. "Sir, we've got a radar contact on the SJ unit, bearing three-three-zero, range one thousand yards."

DiCamaro instantly swung his head to the bearing, trying to see if he could make out the distant shape through the gloom. Raising the binoculars to his eyes, he scanned the bearing again. A radar contact at a thousand yards should have been visible, but the fact that it had taken that long for the radar to detect it meant it must be small. "What's the speed?" he asked.

The phone talker's voice came back sounding confused. "Radar lost the contact at nine hundred yards, sir."

That was enough for the lieutenant. "Man Battle Stations Torpedo!" he ordered over the circuit. "Left standard rudder, steady on course three-three-five." A chorus of acknowledgements greeted him as the battle stations alarm started ringing in control. DiCamaro was fully alert, his eyes straining for any sign of the contact. If it was a Japanese sub, it could have submerged, which would explain the loss of contact.

From behind him he heard the sound of booted feet on the conning tower ladder. A minute later, the captain, Lieutenant Commander Robert Clarkson, was on the bridge. "What is it?" he demanded.

DiCamaro didn't take his eyes from the sea in front of them. "Sir, we had intermittent radar returns from a close contact. It might have been a Jap submarine."

Clarkson scanned the seas in front, not seeing anything. "It's a good drill if nothing else," he commented. "We'll run with it." He started to give the order to clear the bridge when a flash in front of the submarine caught his eye.

"Radar has it again!" the call came. "Range four hundred yards and closing!" Clarkson didn't even acknowledge the report, his eyes never leaving the eery white cloud that had materialized in front of them. DiCamaro dropped his jaw, completely mesmerized by the billowing, ghostly white shape directly in front of them

Clarkson snapped out of it sooner. "Left full rudder!" he ordered. "Starboard engine ahead full!" Behind the submarine, the water at the stern began to froth violently as the rightmost propeller spun at full power. Slowly but surely the bow began to swing away from the apparition.

The white shape vanished once more to the officers' surprise, but this time it reappeared directly ahead, almost touching the submarine. Clarkson shouted in horror, slamming the collision alarm before bracing himself for the inevitable crash. DiCamaro threw up his hands, yelling something, but in the confusion it went unheard. Then the apparition enveloped them and the world went black.

888

Clarkson opened his eyes hesitantly at first, looking up from his bracing position to find the situation completely different than it had been seconds before. The sun was shining down brightly overhead on an azure plain, lighting up what should have been the darkest time of the night. The ghostly cloud had disappeared without a trace, and there had been no gut-wrenching collision to mark their passage through it.

He looked over to his left. DiCamaro had stood back up, blinking his eyes as if in disbelief as he looked around. The lieutenant turned to him. "What the hell just happened?" he asked.

Clarkson shook his head. "I have no idea. I've never seen anything like that before." He turned his head to see that the _Killifish_ was still turning to the left. "DiCamaro, steady us up on an easterly course, bare steerageway, until we can figure this out."

The younger officer nodded and grabbed the bridge circuit. "Control, bridge. Steady as she goes, all engines ahead one-third." The submarine reluctantly eased out of its turn and began running straight nearly due east at about four knots.

Clarkson, still utterly confused, turned to go belowdecks and confer with the control room crew and the other officers. He was starting down the ladder when one of the lookouts piped up. "Object in the water at ten o'clock, sir, about a hundred yards. Looks like…_what is that?_"

Clarkson climbed back up and followed the lookout's pointing arm. DiCamaro already had his binoculars on it.

"I'll be damned," the younger officer muttered. "I've never seen anything like it. Is it some kind of sea serpent or something?" The creature looked like something out of the pages of H.G. Wells or some ancient mythology—it had the body of a turtle, the fins of a sea lion, and the neck of a giraffe. The creature's coloration was unlike any other marine animal DiCamaro had seen—almost otherworldly.

Clarkson raised his own binoculars to his face. "Hell if I know," he replied. "As long as it doesn't give us any trouble, I'm fine with that." Lowering the binoculars, he turned to DiCamaro. "Maybe it's just me, but to you have the feeling that maybe we aren't where we think we are anymore?"

"Mast on the horizon," the second lookout announced before the lieutenant could reply. Once again, both officers swung around and looked along the direction of the seaman's arm.

"Sure as hell," Clarkson muttered. "Coming this way." He turned to DiCamaro. "Clear the bridge, rig for dive."

"Rig for dive, aye." DiCamaro was going down the bridge hatch in seconds. Clarkson looked up at the men on the top of the tower. "Lookouts below!" he thundered. Raising the binoculars back to his face, he took one last look at the distant ship, making sure he had interpreted the contact's movement correctly, before hitting the diving alarm twice.

"Dive, dive!" he ordered before following the lookouts down and dogging the bridge hatch closed. Sliding down the conning tower ladder into control, Clarkson felt the ship begin to angle downwards as the ballast tanks flooded and the hydroplanes moved into the diving position.

"Robbie, what the hell is going on?" asked Lieutenant Harvey Bennet, the executive officer.

"Later," Clarkson cut him off. "Mr. DiCamaro, take us to periscope depth. Mr. Watson," he said to the ensign manning the torpedo data computer, "make ready all bow tubes with the exception of opening outer doors."

"Aye, sir," they both answered. DiCamaro called down the ordered depth to compartment immediately below the conning tower where the diving officer had the planes. The phone talker relayed the other orders to the torpedo room.

Clarkson gave two thumbs up to Bennett, signaling him to raise the search periscope. Kneeling, he brought his eye to the viewport and swung the periscope in an arc over the front of the submarine. "Deck's awash," he announced as the first waves crashed against the superstructure. "Good dive. Fast."

"Passing five-zero feet," the diving officer announced.

Clarkson turned the periscope towards the last bearing of the contact and rotated the handle, swapping in a high-power lens. "Mark this bearing."

Watson glanced at the bearing indicator. "Two-nine-five."

"Angle on the bow, port thirty." Clarkson frowned as he studied the ship. "I'll damned if I've ever seen anything like it, though." He squinted, trying to see if there was anything recognizable about the ship. "For a second it looked like a _Buenos Aires_ _Maru_-type, but…" He pulled his head back and turned to the XO. "Take a look, Harve."

Bennett moved over and put his eye to the glass. "It's not painted in camouflage," he said. "Looks like a passenger liner. But what would a passenger ship be doing here?" He moved his head from the viewer and looked up at Clarkson. "Troop transport?"

Clarkson shook his head. "Where would they be sending troops? And if it's a transport, where's the escort?" He sighed. "This is just getting weirder."

"You want to start a run on it?" Bennett asked.

"No." Clarkson shook his head before turning to DiCamaro. "Lieutenant, you have the deck. Secure from battle stations and have all off-duty officers muster in the wardroom. Keep tracking that passenger ship but don't come any closer than a mile."

"Aye, sir." DiCamaro answered. "Secure from Battle Stations Torpedo," he announced on the internal communication circuit.

888

Thirty minutes later, Clarkson sat at the head of the table with the assembled wardroom members. He cleared his throat. "Gentlemen, we're here now because the ship's chrono says it's one in the morning and the sun is in the middle of the sky. Last night, we moved into some kind of cloud, or object, or God knows _what_, and now I'm…well, I'm not even sure we're in the Pacific anymore."

He told them about the other things that had happened—spotting the sea creature and sighting an oblivious passenger transport sailing through the middle of what should have been an extremely dangerous war zone. Around the table, the different department heads muttered to themselves.

Lieutenant Millunzi raised a finger. "Captain, before we submerged the RBO set picked up a broadcast on medium-wave AM, around a thousand kilocycles, from the presumed direction of the Japanese home islands. The signal was a little spotty, but it sounded like English."

Clarkson thought for a moment. "The closest land mass we can verify our position to is Kyushu. I had intended to head that way before, and the signal you picked up just reinforces that intention. When night falls, we'll surface and track that AM broadcast, and see if we can pick up anything on the HF-DF."

Ensign Watson frowned. "Sir," he began, "How could any of what you've told us happen? Do you think the Japanese are using some new weapon? Shouldn't we send a message to ComSubPac?"

"Easy, Mr. Watson," Clarkson said. "We're certainly going to send a message to Pearl once we've passed clear of our surface contact." He turned his head to the navigator. "Mr. Millunzi, have the radiomen draft a message for ComSubPac with our position and situation. As to this being some kind of new Jap weapon, I find it extremely unlikely that they would spring something this late in the game."

He paused and thought for a moment. "Besides that, what purpose would it have as a weapon?" he asked. "Confusing us? We don't even know what happened, so we can't really speculate yet." Clarkson shook his head. "In the meantime, we're going to verify out position and see about continuing the mission."

888

"Captain, I think you should listen to this." Millunzi poked his head out of the radio shack, still holding one side of his headphones against an ear. "It's like nothing I've heard before."

Clarkson nodded back to him from the control room. "I'll be right there, Dick." He glanced back over at the plot. They had been running northwest on the surface for several hours and had passed the point by which they had expected to see Kyushu appear on radar. Still, the AM signals they had picked up had been increasing in strength and clarity, so Clarkson figured they were going in as good a direction as any. Even if they missed Japan entirely, they would eventually run into mainland Asia, and the _Killifish_ still had more than enough fuel to return to Midway.

Walking forward, he squeezed through a narrow hatch to enter the forward passageway. From there it was only a handful of steps to the radio room. As he entered, Millunzi handed him a headset. "It's pretty weird stuff."

Clarkson frowned and put on the headphones. Through the background static he could fairly easily make out what sounded like a radio broadcast. "_—so always be sure to buy the best quality Pokémon supplies at your local Poke Mart. This Saturday we will be offering a special to all trainers under the age of fifteen—two-for-one essentials! Keep you Pokémon in fighting shape!"_

The commander didn't bother listening to any more of the broadcast. Instead, he took off the headset and turned to Millunzi. "That sounded like English. But what the hell is a 'poh-kay-mahn'?"

Millunzi shrugged. "Damned if I know. But that word seems to pop up on a lot of their signals. We're receiving several other signals now, all in the thousand-kilocycle AM bands…they all seem to be coming from the same general direction, and they're getting stronger."

Clarkson shook his head. "That can't be coming from Japan. They can't broadcast openly like that anymore, we're direction-finding their radio stations and bombing them when they transmit." His voice rose in frustration. "And if they were doing general broadcasting, it wouldn't be about these crazy 'pohkaymahn' things, it would be about the war."

Millunzi didn't have a satisfactory reply for that. "Well, sir," he said, "if it isn't coming from Japan, then we're nowhere near where we thought we were."

Clarkson sighed tiredly. "Sorry. I know none of this is your fault. There's been no reply from Pearl yet?"

The younger officer shook his head. "Not a word, nor any operational bulletins. The tactical radios have been completely silent."

"Damn," Clarkson swore. "This is just too unreal. I don't know what to make of it. Could atmospherics be hampering our ability to receive?"

Millunzi shrugged helplessly. "No real way to know for sure, Captain. HF's not always the most reliable system. We'll just keep on trying."

Clarkson smiled faintly. "I know you will." He noted the dark circles under Millunzi's eyes. "Millunzi, when was the last time you got some sleep?"

"A while," was the honest answer.

Clarkson clapped him on the back. "I think the radio guys can probably handle monitoring for now. Why don't you grab some shut-eye in the meantime?"

The lieutenant nodded. "Aye, sir."

Over their heads, the main shipboard announcing system crackled as it was keyed on. "Captain to the bridge." The dull rumble of the diesel engines lowered in pitch as they slowed down significantly.

Clarkson looked up at the speaker, then nodded to Millunzi before ducking back into control and climbing up the ladder to the bridge. He emerged into the open air, enjoying the feel of the cool air on his face. He loved the sea, which was why he'd spent his life at sea. As long as there was an ocean for him to sail on, no place could be too foreign.

Harvey Bennett was perched at the front of the conning tower. Hearing Clarkson come up, he turned and smiled weakly. "I guess it's a good night, Robbie," he said.

"Yeah," Clarkson replied. "Any luck trying to get a celestial fix?"

Bennett shook his head. "Not a chance. I even had Chief Riggins come up here, but he said he couldn't make heads or tails of the constellations."

The _Killifish_'s captain shook his head tiredly. "Where are we, Harve?" he asked. "What have we gotten ourselves into?"

Bennett pointed to the horizon. "That's part of why I called you up. If you look hard, you can see that the sky isn't as dark over there. Given that it should be about local midnight wherever we are, that can't be the dawn. The only explanation I can think of is backscatter from artificial lighting—a city. It reminds me of before the war, before the blackouts."

"It's hard to believe that that's Japan, if you're right," Clarkson commented. "There's no way they would light up their cities—not now. Hell, I can't think of any port right now that would."

"I wasn't so sure about this whole 'portal' thing you talked about," Bennett admitted, "but more and more now I can't ignore that something's happened. The thing is, what do we do now?"

The captain sighed. "I have no idea. We can't stay out here forever. We don't know our position and we can't get a navigational fix. We haven't been able to raise anyone on the radio. DiCamaro says we can keep running west for two days before we need to think about turning back to Midway—if Midway is still where we think it is. What are our options?"

Bennett sighed in agreement. "It's a gamble no matter what we do," he finished for Clarkson. "But whatever we do, we should do it soon. The crew's getting mighty curious as to what's going on, and we still need to worry about food supplies."

Clarkson didn't speak for a long minute. "You're right," he said at last. "We need to act. And I'm not going to sit around here making holes in the ocean." He pointed towards the distant light on the horizon. "We're going to head for those lights and see if we can figure out where we are. How far do you think?"

The lieutenant considered for a moment. "No more than sixty miles," he said, working the figures in his head. "Probably fifty or less. We could make the coast in less than three hours at flank."

"Yes, but we'd be off an unfamiliar and possibly hostile coast in the dark," Clarkson countered. "We wouldn't have the right charts or information for close piloting at night. No, let's do this: Ring up nine knots—that way we can arrive in sight of land around nautical twilight. It'll be light enough for us to navigate, but still dark enough that we can slip away if we need to."

"You heading down to grab some sleep?" Bennett asked. "I can take it from here."

Clarkson nodded. "Yeah. Wake me up when we're fifteen miles out. Stand by to station the maneuvering watch as well." He started to move back to the hatch, but paused. He looked up at the XO. "Harve, we're going to have to play this one by ear. Be ready for anything."

It would only be much later that they would realize the absurdity of such a request.

* * *

Comments/Feedback always appreciated.

Research Sources:

- San Francisco Maritime National Park Organization

- Fleet Submarines: Historic Naval Ships Association

- Submarine Operations/KC2AIO


	2. Pulling In

War and Peace: A Pokémon meets Silent Service Fic.

* * *

Characters will be introduced by chapter of appearance.

_Dramatis Personae_

Crew of the _Killifish_

Chief Quartermaster Samuel Riggins, Chief of the Boat

Torpedoman's Mate Stanley Betts, After Torpedo Room LPO

Citizens of Kanto

Officer Jenny, Fuchsia City Police

* * *

Tony DiCamaro paused before heading forward to wake the captain. From behind the control room, heated voices were coming from the mess deck. DiCamaro moved to listen at the hatch.

"What do you mean, _sea serpent_?" an incredulous voice asked. "That's the craziest thing I've heard! Sea serpents don't even exist!"

A rather exasperated voice replied. "Listen, Harris, I know what I saw! We ran into that cloud thing and all of a sudden it's light outside, and then that _thing _appeared. Then Joey spots a ship and we're crash diving before I can look again!"

"Bullshit!" the first voice answered. "I don't think you know what you saw."

"Well, then what about the radio?" a third sailor asked. "We've been trying to raise Pearl for almost a day—nothing."

DiCamaro shook his head, not bothering to listen to more. He didn't have answers to their questions, nor did any of the officers for that matter. And speculating would only lead to even more rumors. Walking forward past the plot table, he squeezed through the watertight hatch into the forward passageway. The captain's stateroom was on the starboard side.

Knocking gently first, he softly drew the privacy curtain to the side. "Captain?"

Clarkson groaned and stretched; waking up from four hours' worth of sleep was something he had come to expect, but never enjoy. Opening his eyes, he looked up at the lieutenant. "What is it, Tony?"

"Sir, Lieutenant Millunzi reports that latest sounding puts us at the hundred-fathom curve," DiCamaro informed him. "Radar has range to land approximately fifteen miles, no surface contacts. Lieutenant Bennett requests your presence on the bridge."

Clarkson swung his legs out of his rack and sat up. "Any radio traffic over the fleet circuit?"

DiCamaro shook his head. "None, sir, though we're receiving a lot of AM channels over the entertainment sets. The XO hasn't let them be put out for the crew yet—he doesn't want to help the rumor mill any more than what's already been done."

The _Killifish_'s captain nodded. "Probably the right thing to do. We can't keep them in the dark forever, though." He thought for a second. "Tell Mr. Bennett that I'll be on the bridge shortly."

The younger officer nodded. "Aye, sir," he replied before closing the curtain and heading aft.

Clarkson hastily straightened his khaki uniform—he tried not to sleep dressed, but sometimes the situation called for it—and grabbed his parka before sliding the stateroom curtain aside and heading aft. He passed Millunzi at the plotting table; the younger officer was frowning at the chart.

"What've you got, Dick?" Clarkson asked the navigator.

Millunzi looked up, his expression one of bewilderment. "Sir, based on the radar, the coastline we're approaching looks like Japan. But it _isn't_."

Clarkson frowned. "What do you mean?" he asked, looking more closely at the chart.

Millunzi pointed to the depth markings. "First of all, the water's too shallow. South of Tokyo Bay, we shouldn't hit six hundred feet for at least several more miles. It's a steep drop-off."

"We could be passing over some anomaly," Clarkson mused. "Our charts are less-than-perfect for this area."

The lieutenant shook his head. "No, sir. It's not just that. I've compared the radar points on the coast to the charts. The coastline features are similar, but there are too many differences for it to be the same land." He looked up at the captain. "This is my fourth patrol off the approaches to Tokyo Bay—second as a navigator—and I'd wager anything that what I saw on the scope wasn't Japan. It looks like it, but it isn't."

"Do you think you'll be able to use these charts for navigation, then?" Clarkson asked.

"Not accurately," Millunzi replied. "Maybe as a general guide, but that's it."

"Very well." Clarkson nodded, moving towards the ladder topside. "Keep me informed."

A cool sea breeze welcomed him as he climbed up onto the small bridge at the top of the conning tower. Harvey Bennett turned, hearing Clarkson come up, and offered him a steaming cup. "Morning, Robbie."

Clarkson gratefully accepted the coffee and took a sip. "Morning, Harve. What's going on?"

"Millunzi already tell you?" Bennett asked.

"About the charts?" Clarkson nodded. "Yeah. What do you think?"

"I'm not sure what to think," Bennett answered. "Either we're off Japan, or we're not. Millunzi could be mistaken, and the radar picture does look a lot like Japan. But then you have that sea monster, and the cruise ship, and a brightly lit city in the middle of a war zone. And those radio transmissions. What does it all add up to?"

Clarkson nodded. "Do you think maybe it's over?" he asked. "Maybe the Japs surrendered, and that's why the lights are back on. Maybe we can go home now."

"No," Bennett shook his head. "I don't think they would surrender yet. And if they had surrendered, we would be hearing about it from every radio in the world."

Clarkson didn't reply immediately, choosing instead to take another sip of his coffee. "There is the possibility that Watson was right," he mused. "That this is all some hallucination brought on by some secret Jap weapon. But I don't understand how our heads could make up this stuff."

The executive officer nodded and sipped from his own cup. "What do we do then, Robbie?" he asked.

Clarkson's expression hardened. "We play for keeps. We'll head in until we can determine that we're actually off Japan or until they send something out after us. Maybe we can flush a target, too."

"How close do you want to get?"

"Bring us in to under three miles from land," Clarkson ordered. "We'll see what that leads to."

888

The sun rose up from behind the _Killifish_, only gradually spreading its rays across the ocean to the distant land. Ahead of them, a great mountain rose up above the horizon, high into the air. On the water ahead, fishing boats and small pleasure craft danced across the water closer in to shore. Clarkson didn't pay too much attention to them, though—his binoculars were focused on the coastal city behind them.

"Doesn't look right," he commented. "It's like Millunzi said—close, but that's not what I've seen before. I have no idea where we are."

"What do we do, then?" Bennett asked. "What _can_ we do?"

"We head in," Clarkson decided. "All the way. And figure out where we are. We get some charts, and see if we can find somebody to report to." He turned to the XO. "Station the maneuvering watch and take us in towards that port; maybe we can spark a reaction."

Bennett raised his binoculars to his eyes, seeking to double-check what he thought he had seen. "Maybe we have." He pointed off the bow with his free hand. "Look there, Robbie, about a mile distant."

Clarkson raised his own binoculars. "Looks like a couple of fast launches heading this way. Maybe port security, the markings look official. I don't see any obvious weapons."

The lieutenant turned to the older officer. "Battle stations?"

The Captain thought for a moment. "No," he said finally. "But get a crew ready on the twenty, and have Chief Riggins bring up some weapons from the small arms locker."

"Got it." Bennett grabbed the bridge communicator. "Control, bridge. Have the 20mm crew lay topside."

With the twenty-millimeter Oerlikon machine gun manned and ready, there was nothing to do but keep a close eye on the approaching motorboats and wait. With the sound of boots on metal, Sam Riggins emerged from the conning tower and joined them in their vigil, handing both officers .45 caliber handguns.

"We're going to play this one cool," Clarkson reminded them. "Hayes, Mecham," he said, addressing the machine gun crew, "keep that gun skyward except on my command."

The two motor launches cut across the bow of the submarine, slowing as they came alongside the larger vessel. Clarkson scanned his binoculars across the boat, studying each crewmember. About half of each crew looked Caucasian, with the rest a spattering of different ethnicities. On the bow of the first boat, a light-complexioned woman in an official-looking blue uniform was waving her arm, signaling at them to heave to.

Clarkson nodded. "All stop," he ordered into the bridge comm. He waved his hand in acknowledgement and hoisted the megaphone normally used for docking command. "Ahoy!"

Leaving the bridge to Bennett, he and Riggins clambered down the ladder near the rear of the conning tower, catching the lines tossed over from the first launch and securing them to the deck. Two crewers on the launch drew them in until the watercraft was along side.

"Ahoy!" Clarkson repeated. "How are you?"

The uniformed woman walked over; Clarkson noted the holstered revolver on her Sam Browne belt. "Who are you?" she asked. "What kind of ship is this? I've never seen anything like it."

Clarkson did a double-take at the woman's verdant hair, but her unaccented English was comforting. "Ah, this is this is the U.S. Navy vessel _Killifish_," he answered. "I'm the Captain, Robert Clarkson, and this is Samuel Riggins, one of the senior crew."

Her confused expression didn't change. "What's the U.S. Navy?" she asked.

Once again, Clarkson was at a loss for words. He exchanged a startled look with Riggins. If the woman didn't know what the United States Navy was, they obviously weren't in the Pacific—or the woman had been living under a rock for the past four years. However, given that few ports were overly friendly to foreign warships, perhaps he should just run with the opportunity.

"We're a survey vessel out of Pearl Harbor," he explained with meaningful glance to Riggins. "We do oceanographic research and map the sea floor. I'm afraid we've gotten a little lost, though, and we're trying to figure out where we are."

The woman broke her frown and smiled. "Okay. Well, you're about three miles out from Fuchsia City, in the Kanto region. Do you mind if I come aboard for a moment?"

"Sure." Clarkson nodded and extended a hand, helping her across the gap formed by the rounded ballast tank. "Watch yourself, there."

"I'm Officer Jenny with the Fuchsia Police," the woman informed him. "I'm sorry about the suspicion, but we thought you might have been raiders or someone from Team Rocket here to make trouble." At the sailor's quizzical look she elaborated. "Team Rocket is a big Pokémon gang that makes trouble. They occasionally go after ship leaving the harbor."

Clarkson resisted the impulse to grimace slightly. There was that 'pohkaymon' business again. However, he didn't want to raise suspicion by asking. "I'm sorry to hear that. Piracy is an ugly crime."

Jenny nodded. "Unfortunately, and it usually doesn't end well." Turning her head, she pointed to the deck gun mounted on the deck behind the conning tower. "What is that?"

The naval officer thought fast for an explanation for the 5in/25cal anti-ship weapon. "Well," he chuckled embarrassedly, "it's actually a cannon of sorts. We use it to launch oceanographic buoys out to sea, where our wake won't disturb them."

Jenny's smile didn't waver. "Makes sense. We don't have any survey ships here, so I don't know much about them, but I know that charting the water is important." She offered her hand. "Thank you for letting me come aboard. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"As a matter-of-fact, yes," Clarkson answered. "We've been at sea for some time now, and we would all like some rest. Plus, I need charts for the area. Do you have a place where we can anchor or dock? I'm afraid we don't have any regional currency, but we'd be able to trade or work off any cost."

"I think I can arrange something." Jenny nodded. "The public docks are available. We haven't been able to survey the harbor for awhile, so if you could do that, I think the city could call it even with you."

"Sounds like a deal." Clarkson shook her hand. "Our draft's about seven meters, will that be okay?"

"I think so." Jenny stepped back over to the motor launch. "Just follow us in."

Chief Riggins undid the lines holding the ships together as Clarkson climbed back up into the conning tower. "She says the land is called Kanto, and the city ahead is called Fuchsia. We're going to pull in; they have a dock for us. Ring up an ahead bell."

Bennett complied and soon the submarine was moving forward, following in the wake of the launch as it guided them in. The sun was rising high into the sky, and gulls were soaring overhead. It wasn't a sight either officer had expected to see for several more weeks.

Leaning against the side of the bridge, Bennett turned his head toward Clarkson. "Robbie, it just occurred to me: isn't Kanto a name for part of Japan?"

Clarkson tossed the name around in his head. "It does sound familiar, but I think we can both agree that this isn't Japan, given that we haven't been shot at." He chuckled.

"Even still…"

"I'm not going to worry about it," Clarkson said. "I don't think it could even be some kind of trick. There was absolutely no recognition in that woman's expression when I mentioned the Navy. None." He shook his head. "I don't think anyone could control themselves that much."

"Will it be safe to let the crew out tonight?" Bennett asked. "We can't keep them onboard forever, Robbie."

"I'm not sure. I want to send out a scouting team first, actually, to figure out this place a little more. We'll have to let them out soon, though—and fill them in."

Pulling into the harbor, both officers felt refreshed by the presence of life around them. After a month sailing across comparatively barren ocean, the busy activity of harbors reminded them that there was a world beyond. The port at Fuchsia City was no exception: lighters and tugs bustled across the water, and on the docks longshoremen loaded and unloaded docked ships.

The launch ahead led them steadily towards an open section of seawall next to what looked like a small park. With the expertise gained from long experience, Clarkson nestled the submarine against the seawall with a gentle touch and ordered lines passed over to the waiting dockworkers.

"Make down the bow line. Make down the stern line," Clarkson ordered. "Moored, shift colors."

He shared a relieved smile with Harvey Bennett. For better or worse, they were docked.

888

While Clarkson went ashore to speak to the longshoremen who had helped them dock, Bennett gathered the majority of the crew into the cramped mess deck, waiting for Clarkson to brief them on the events of the past two days. _Klliifish'_s Captain returned to find an extremely curious crew waiting.

"The long and short of it is, we're not in the Pacific Ocean anymore," he told them. "We're docked in a place called Fuchsia City, in a country called Kanto. Neither is on our charts, but we're going to try to figure out where we are and how to get back home."

"Tonight, I'm going to go ashore and see if I can figure out some accommodations and find out more about the city, along with Lieutenant DiCamaro. Lieutenant Bennett will remain in command in my absence. Unfortunately, that means that you will have to remain aboard for the time being—" he paused to allow the collective groan to die down—"but rest assured that you will be getting more information and shore liberty as soon as I can make the arrangements."

"You are all free to go," he said. "We won't do any more maintenance for the rest of the day. And I need to speak with TM2 Betts."

The sailors dispersed, heading back to racks for well-earned sleep or to retrieve books or playing cards, except for Torpedoman Betts.

"Betts, we'd like you to come along with the shore party while we explore," Clarkson explained. "I want to hear your opinions, plus you can be the crew's spy for the time being."

The broad-shouldered petty officer cracked a smile. "I wouldn't mind the fresh air, sir," he replied.

"You're qualified on pistols, right?" Clarkson asked, surprising the young man.

"Yes, sir," he replied. "I was a pretty good shot before I joined the Navy to begin with. Are we going out armed?"

"Concealed forty-fives." Clarkson nodded. "I don't anticipate trouble, but I'm not going to be unprepared, either."

"Understood. When are we going ashore?"

"We'll step off in about thirty minutes," Clarkson told him. "Grab anything you need and meet me topside. Bring your pea coat, we might stay out late." The petty officer nodded and headed aft.

Thirty minutes later, the small group of explorers was ready to disembark. Clarkson turned at the gangway, saluted the flag at the stern, and took his first steps into the new country.

* * *

Feedback is always appreciated.

Regards, Taskforce


	3. The World as We Know It

War and Peace: A Pokémon meets Silent Service Fic.

* * *

Lieutenant Commander Robert Clarkson turned his head from side to side, familiarizing himself with the dockside area where the _Killifish _was moored. His first impression of Fuchsia City was of its normalcy, which was simultaneously comforting and slightly disturbing. The shipyard the group entered could easily have been dropped out of the sky from Pearl Harbor or Fremantle, complete with flashes from welding arcs, grease-covered fitters, and containers stacked high alongside dry cargo ships. The area they had moored up at was somewhat cleaner and less industrialized, obviously being set up to impress arriving crews.

However, it was this same innocuous setting that raised his suspicion. This was_ not_ supposed to be normal. They were lost in unknown territory after sailing into a combat zone. Everything up to the port officer's arrival on the motor launch had only served to heighten his suspicions, but her demeanor had been friendly and polite. The _Killifish_ had been given a berthing slot and allowed to dock without even a formal inspection or customs arrangement. It was as if they were sailing into their home port, but by her own admission Officer Jenny had never seen a ship like his submarine!

Clarkson shook his head, smiling ruefully to himself. He was probably trying to think this through too hard. If anything, most of the incongruity came from the fact that from all appearances, Fuchsia City was at peace with the world. To a man who had only known war patrol after war patrol for almost four years, the idea that he could be in a place where there was _no_ war felt as distinctly alien as the weight of the loaded Colt automatic tucked into his reefer would have felt in 1941.

The park next to the docks was small, but obviously well-tended and decidedly picturesque. A small lighthouse further down the seawall marked the base of the harbor's protective seawall. The main lights of the city were in the opposite direction, though, so Clarkson headed that way with DiCamaro and Betts following. They saw several street signs written in plain English with conventional Roman lettering directing them towards the city center.

As they moved out of the harbor area towards the more urban parts of the town, Clarkson distilled the purpose of his exploration down to several key points. First of all, would it be safe to let _Killifish_'s crew out into town? Rowdy sailors could prove dangerous both to themselves and to others, and Clarkson was leery of offending Fuchsia's population through the antics of the hard-drinking, hard-partying submariners. Furthermore, Clarkson still didn't know what the local currency was, or how the crew would be able to enjoy themselves without some way to pay for their entertainment.

Secondly, and most importantly for the mission, he had to figure out where they were. If they were anywhere near where their last navigational fix had put them, they shouldn't have been able to find an English-speaking, friendly country for several thousand miles—yet they had found one anyways. Clarkson and Millunzi had been unable to locate a country named Kanto anywhere on their charts, though the notation on the charts of the Japanese coast did mention an area with that name. However, there was no Fuchsia City listed on those charts, leaving both officers thoroughly stumped.

Once he had determined their location—_if_ he could determine it, Clarkson thought grimly—he would report the anomaly they had encountered and request instructions. If he was unable to contact ComSubPac or ComSubSoWestPac, then…well, he really wasn't sure.

The sun had passed overhead, Clarkson guessing that the local time was about two hours past noon, by the time the group had entered the main part of the city. The three sailors found themselves subject to stares from most of the passersby on account of their strange uniforms, but the glances were curious rather than suspicious.

"Would you look at that!" Betts exclaimed.

Clarkson turned from the sign advertising the local library to follow the torpedoman's pointing finger. Several dozen yards down the street, a young man was walking side-by-side with an enormous birdlike creature. Standing over four feet tall, the avian appeared vaguely similar to photos he'd seen of ostriches—_but it has two heads! Two!_ The heads turned his direction, with one opening its beak to ape his unmasked astonishment.

"What the hell is it?" Clarkson asked no one in particular, his eyes never leaving the impossible creature.

"I haven't got a clue," DiCamaro whispered in identical amazement. "Is…is it a bird?"

The avian extended two stubby wings that had been hidden under the orange down of its body and flapped them, hopping up from the sidewalk for a second before landing again. The young man walking next to the creature smiled and laughed, noticing their stares. "Sorry, Doduo just likes to show off sometimes. He's a bit of a prima donna."

The three sailors walked closer, still not quite believing. Clarkson pulled his eyes from the bird to look at the man who had addressed them. "You say it's called doe-duo? A Doduo?"

"That's right," the man said, looking at them with more curiosity. "Are you not from around here?" he asked.

"Not really," DiCamaro admitted, still distracted by the otherworldly creature. Betts reached forward with a hand as if to touch the bird, but one of the heads snapped forward and pecked him.

"Ouch!" the petty officer exclaimed, yanking his arm back immediately. The young man sighed. "I'm sorry; he's a little unfriendly sometimes." Looking down at the Doduo, he scolded it. "Listen, Doduo, you know you can't just peck strangers. It's not nice."

One of the bird's heads drooped in apparent acquiescence, but the other kept its gaze firmly locked on the offending torpedoman. Likewise, Betts didn't take his eyes from the creature until it and the young man were well past them on the street. "Damn freak show," he muttered, wincing and holding his bleeding hand.

Clarkson motioned for the other two sailors to circle in. "Did any of you find that just a bit unbelievable?" he asked. "I mean, I expected a different language or food, or something. Not four-foot-tall two-headed birds that attack people." He shook his head. 'What's next?"

"I saw you looking at that library sign earlier," DiCamaro said. "If this country is really inhabited by giant two-headed birds, and we aren't just all bat-shit crazy, we might be able to find out about them there."

Clarkson nodded, looking to Betts. "How's the hand?" he asked. "You need anything?"

"No," the younger man replied. "I'll be alright; it's not bad. The bleeding has almost stopped." Shaking the hand vigorously, he motioned them on.

Fortunately, they were able to reach the library without further incident. "We'll split up," Clarkson announced, "and meet up here in, say, an hour. Try to learn as much about this place as possible, and we'll compare notes."

888

Clarkson's first stop was the library's reference desk. "Excuse me," he asked the young woman behind the desk, "But I was wondering if you could help me. I'm from a ship that just pulled in, and I'm not familiar with the, uh…local wildlife, so to speak. Is there any information here about them?"

The woman smiled as if he was joking, but after she realized he was indeed serious, she pointed to a section of the library. "That's our Pokémon information section," she told him in a cheery voice. "You should be able to find out anything you need about the Pokémon in the Fuchsia City region. There is also a section on trainer information if you need it."

Clarkson nodded. "Pokémon…uh, got it." Wondering how he had just made a fool of himself, he turned and walked over to the indicated section. Picking out the first book, he quickly returned it for being too technical—written in miniscule type; it looked more like his submarine qualification papers than a useful reference.

Wandering down the aisle, he finally selected a smaller book titled _The World of Pokémon_. The brightly-colored illustrations and simple language marked it as a children's book, but the submarine officer figured he was as good as a child in this country anyways. Taking a seat on a low bench, he turned over the first page.

It took him only a few moments of flipping through the book to realize he wasn't even that far.

"My God," he murmured softly, suppressing a whistle. The book was literally filled with descriptions of otherworldly monsters, residents of science fiction brought to life. What was even more surprising was that, by the tone of the writing, these monsters were commonplace, an everyday sight. And apparently, the giant bird they had seen was one of the _small ones_.

Clarkson could understand why Officer Jenny hadn't batted an eye at the _Killifish_. Compared to something like this 'Charizard' creature, his submarine must have looked mundane. To guard against his simply being confused or reading fiction, he opened another book. And another. _It was all real…_

A commotion from the front of the library made him look up. Anthony DiCamaro was bounding towards him, wild-eyed. The lieutenant skidded to a halt, slightly out of breath.

"Robbie, you're not going to believe this," DiCamaro said. "I was up towards the front of the library when I saw another of those weird animals walking through the window. Then this guy raises a red-and-white ball, about this big"—he used his hands to indicate a softball-sized sphere—"and this red beam of light shoots out and hits the animal. It starts glowing red, and then it disappeared!" The lieutenant paused to let it sink it. "I couldn't believe what I just saw, so I went outside and asked the guy how he did it. And then he throws the ball on the ground and out popped the thing again." He shook his head. "The guy laughed and said something about how it was strange I had never seen it before."

Clarkson handed him the first book he had picked up. "Read." Standing back up, he started to look around for Betts as DiCamaro paged through the book. Standing on his toes to look over the shelves, he spied the petty officer's blond hair in the current events section and dragged an enthralled DiCamaro behind him.

Betts held up a colorful magazine at their approach. "I asked the desk what was going on with the War," he said. "She looked confused, then told me to look for Team Rocket in the periodicals section. There's nothing about Japan or the War here." He shook the magazine. "All that's in this section seems to be about mythical animals. It's like they have an obsession with them."

"They're not mythical," Clarkson responded, not quite wanting to believe the words himself. "Everything you read is real. I don't know how, but I've seen too much to call it coincidence."

"That can't be right," Betts responded. "Some of these animals can't exist. They just _can't_."

Clarkson sighed. "For the past few days, all I've been hearing is how things can't exist, or can't happen. How did we disappear from the middle of the Pacific?" He ticked off each point on his fingers. "Why can't we contact Pearl harbor, or anyone else? How could night turn into day? Why can't we find a chart of our position, or take a celestial fix? How can impossible creatures exist?"

He shook his head. "I can't tell you how or why, for any of those. I don't know. But the fact is that every single one of those things has happened in the past two days. We've seen them with our own eyes."

For once, the two sailors were silent. Both seemed to consider his words for a long time. Finally Betts cleared his throat.

"Sir, if what you say is true, and all this is real, then we can't be on Earth."

The submarine commander nodded. "That's right. As crazy as it sounds, that's the only conclusion the evidence supports. Wherever that cloud thing—or portal, whatever it was—took us, I think it's safe to say we're no longer on Earth."

"But they speak English!" the torpedoman exclaimed. "If we're in a different world, then why do they speak English—hell, why are there humans? And why is it so much like the Earth we know?"

"I'm not sure," Clarkson said, "But think about this. What if we weren't the first ones to come here? If other people from Earth came here, they would speak languages from Earth. Given that the land seems to be Earth-like, they would try to live like they had on Earth. And while there may be humans here, there sure as _hell_ are aliens!"

He raised a hand to forestall further comments. "Let's try a little experiment." He led them over to the reference desk and again addressed the woman there. "Excuse me, miss, but I'm going to ask a couple of questions you might think are dumb or strange. Please just answer them."

The woman frowned in confusion. "Okay?" she said hesitantly.

He raised a finger. "What is the name of this world, this planet, whatever?"

She looked at him as if he was certifiably insane. "Earth, of course."

Before Betts or DiCamaro could say anything, Clarkson cut them off with a gesture. "And how far are we from Japan?"

"What is Japan?"

"How about North America?" Clarkson pressed. "Europe? Africa? Any of those ring a bell?"

Thoroughly flustered, the woman could only shake her head.

"You've never heard of those places, have you?" Clarkson asked quietly. "In fact, you're thinking I'm possibly crazy." He paused. "That's quite all right; I'm close to thinking the same thing myself."

He turned to the other two submariners, his face utterly unreadable. "We're going back to the ship."

888

"You heard her; she said we were on Earth!"

DiCamaro and Betts struggled to keep up with their commander as Clarkson walked swiftly back towards the Killifish. The two sailors were alarmed and puzzled at his sudden change of behavior.

"Of course she would say that," he answered, an edge of disgust in his voice. "She thinks she's on Earth."

"What!"

Clarkson turned abruptly to face them. "She really thinks she is on Earth. Think about it. If you were transported here without warning—without the ability to discover more about your surroundings—you would assume, like we did, that you were still on Earth." He shook his head. "We could be _on _Earth, too, past or future or something. But we are not on Earth, as it is, or was, or will be in 1945."

"So what do we do?" DiCamaro asked, taken aback at the outburst.

"We get the hell out of here," Clarkson answered, turning around and resuming walking. "We go back to where the portal was and find it." He looked over his shoulder at them. "I don't know about the two of you, but I want to back home. _My_ Earth, not this place. And the faster we get back to where we were, the more likely I think it is that we'll find that portal."

Within twenty minutes, they were within sight of the _Killifish_. Clarkson gave orders as he walked. "DiCamaro, station the maneuvering watch as soon as you get aboard, and get those diesels warm. I want to be underway in less than an hour. Betts, tell it straight to the crew and tell them we're going home."

"Yessir." Both men, energized by their captain's fervor, rushed to prepare the submarine for getting underway.

As they ran across the brow, several of the security motor launches they had seen earlier cast off from the pier and moved out of the harbor at high speed, their propellers turning the seawater to white foam behind them. Clarkson thought he saw a glimpse of Officer Jenny's blue uniform among the crewers, and wondered who she was after this time.

Taking his place on the bridge after quickly briefing the officers, he surveyed his crew's work as hasty preparations were made to get underway. Within minutes, the roar of the _Killifish'_s four Fairbanks-Morse diesels was clearly audible, and the initial belch of black smoke from the exhaust faded to a nearly invisible grey plume.

"Single up all lines," Clarkson ordered with the bullhorn. On the deck of the submarine, his sailors removed extra lines and turns from the deck cleats, leaving one part of rope between the submarine and the dock.

Turning around, Clarkson started to make a 360 degree scan of his surrounding prior to casting off, but a flash of light out to sea caught his gaze. Raising his binoculars to his eyes, he saw what could only be described as a _battle_ underway scarcely a mile distant from the pier. The security launches were circling frantically around a moving blue stalk sticking out of the water. Even as he watched, blast of energy shot upwards from the launches, striking the stalk, which thrashed about before returning the fire with a red blast of its own. A brilliant explosion lit up the horizon as the blast touched off the patrol boat's fuel tank, sending pieces of the craft high into the air.

"My God…" Clarkson realized with terrifying clarity that the "stalk" was actually another one of the monsters, the "Pokémon" he had read about. And it was destroying the launches with ease.

_Crack!_ The sound of the explosion finally reached the submarine, catching the attention of the line handlers. Jaws dropped at the sight; underway preparations forgotten.

Clarkson then made a decision which would alter forever their fates. "Cast off all lines! Battle surface! Man Battle Stations Gun Action!"

Working frantically, the line handlers threw off the heavy lines, clearing the submarine's deck. From the hatch, Clarkson heard the sounds of boots on steel over the sound of the general alarm as crewers ran hurriedly to their battle stations. Harvey Bennett was up the conning tower latter in the space of five seconds, the machine gun crews right behind him. Aft of the sail, five sailors scrambled out of the aft gun hatch and quickly began making the five-inch gun ready for action.

With a steady hand, Clarkson guided the submarine into the main channel out of the harbor. "Robbie, what's the situation?" Bennett asked, trying to understand the skipper's sudden change in demeanor.

"Take a look." Clarkson pointed out at the wreck of the launch. One of the other patrol boats was dead in the water and had flames rising from its decks, and the sea monster was moving closer into shore.

"What in the hell..?" Bennett exclaimed. "What is that?"

"Don't ask," Clarkson muttered darkly. "Just one more nightmare brought to life."

"You want to _fight it_?" the executive officer asked incredulously.

Clarkson shook his head. "Not if I can help it, but that _thing_ has sunk at least one boat and another is about to go down. I'm not going to see them drown when we have ability to help."

With the opposed-piston diesels running at maximum revolutions, the submarine's speed quickly rose to twenty knots, and within five minutes they were in sight of the first boat's wreckage. Several of the crewers were in the water, thrashing about and trying to hold onto debris. When they sighted the submarine, they began waving their arms in desperation.

Clarkson steered the Killifish in, slowing to bare steerageway and having the gun crews drag the waterlogged survivors aboard. They threw lines to the survivors, pulling them to the edge of the hull where strong hands lifted them aboard. One of the shipwrecked mariners was the officer they had met before.

Ignoring the requests of the other sailors to follow them below, she climbed up the coning tower, her hair plastered to her head and neck and a bleeding cut across her right cheek. "Captain Clarkson!" she exclaimed, remembering his name. "We need to head back in and get more trainers to help. That Gyarados has to be stopped!"

"It's called a Gyarados?" Clarkson asked. "Why do you need to stop it?"

"Something has enraged it," she gasped Jenny. "It will attack the town. Only Koga can stop it now."

"Does it have a weak spot?" Clarkson asked.

Jenny blinked in surprise. "It's very strong against most kinds of Pokémon," she answered. "Very little can stop it. It defeated all of my trainers. That's why we need Koga, he's very strong and skilled."

The submarine captain pointed to her revolver. "How's it take to lead?"

She shook her head. "It wouldn't even feel this."

"Well, I bet I can do better," Clarkson muttered. "Hard left rudder! All ahead flank!"

The _Killifish_ knifed around in the water, turning back at the monstrosity. The Gyarados has come to within a quarter-mile of shore; it was opening its mouth and firing off red beams of energy towards the beach.

"Mr. Clarkson, I must insist you take me back to shore to warn Koga!" Officer Jenny protested once it became clear Clarkson was heading straight for the monster. "You can't fight the Gyarados without strong Pokémon, it's too powerful!"

"We'll see about that," the submariner replied. "Manning, give him a burst!"

"Yes, sir!" The sailor manning the forward anti-air machine gun tightened down on the trigger, sending a ripple of twenty-millimeter shells into the beast's side. The Gyarados howled in pain and turned from the shore, bright crimson fluid spilling from the pattern of holes along its thin body. Roaring in pain and anger, the leviathan began chasing after the submarine, its powerful body moving in sine curves to propel it forward.

Clarkson ordered a hard turn to the right, moving at right angles away from the creature. The order came not a moment too soon—with a combination wail and roar, the sea monster snapped its head forward, vomiting gigajoules of coherent energy from its mouth in a ruby beam. The blast smote the water behind the submarine, sending up an enormous steam cloud as well as a ten foot wave in all directions.

"Brace for impact!" Clarkson yelled. The sailors manning the deck guns held on for dear life as the monstrous wave smashed into the submarine, battering it as if the 300-foot vessel a was a child's toy in a bathtub. Clarkson lost his balance and smashed into the side of the bridge as the _Killifish_ listed more than thirty degrees to port. Instantly, all reason evaporated in his brain and he took a second to recover, wondering just what he had gotten himself into. He heard shouts of shock and pain from below as the sailors inside were tossed around by the force of the impact.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, the submarine righted itself and Clarkson ordered another hard turn to starboard. The crew manning the deck gun had managed to recover from the wave, so Clarkson gave the order to open up. "Fire at will! All guns!"

The impossibly loud sound of the five inch gun made his ears ring, but the result was all he could have hoped for. The armor-piercing shell struck the Gyarados high-up on its neck, blasting clean through the creature's armored flesh and leaving a gaping red hole flowing with brilliant arterial blood.

Amazingly, the monster remained upright instead of being instantly killed. The creature's head tracked the submarine again, this time spraying a three-foot diameter jet of water at the submarine. The spray swept along the aft deck, sending the five inch gun crew flying into the water, screaming.

Clarkson reversed his turn, trying to lure the creature away from the men in the water. The Gyarados follow them eagerly, letting off indiscriminate blasts of water and energy which scattered around the submarine, sending up geysers of water that soaked the bridge in sheets of spray. The _Killifish_ was tossed about by the impacts, shuddering so violently Clarkson wondered if the ship would tear itself apart. Clarkson had never experienced such a shelling, and gripped the bridge railing until his knuckles were white. Again and again, his machine gunners fired at the Gyarados, wounding it grievously, but the creature did not die. In stead it raged on, letting loose even more frenzied blasts all around.

The submarine captain was at the point of wondering whether it _could_ be killed when an accurate burst of gunfire from one of his anti-air weapons caught the Gyarados full in the face. The creature's head exploded into a mass of bloody pulp, and with a final, defiant roar, the serpentine body sank back into the ocean.

Clarkson nearly collapsed on the spot out of sheer exhaustion, panting. It was all he could do to order the boat back towards the gun crew in the water before darkness overtook him and he passed out on the bridge.

His last thought was a happy one, though. He had taken on this new world…and won.


	4. Koga

War, Peace and Everything In Between: A Pokemon meets Silent Service fic.

Note: This is a quick update, not a full chapter, but it should be interesting. Also, note that there is some brief strong profanity.

* * *

Dramatis Personae

Koga, Fuchsia City Gym Leader

* * *

Robert Clarkson opened his eyes slowly as the distant voices he had been hearing became clear. He realized he was listening to a pitched argument.

"I don't agree," a woman's voice was saying. "He lied to port authorities and disobeyed police orders. Whatever else he may have done, that's completely unlawful."

"Easy, officer," the second voice said soothingly. "I think in this situation his actions might be understandable, and he did stop the Gyarados." The voice paused. "In this case, I'm willing to grant him some measure of leniency."

"But, sir—!" The woman's voice protested.

"Enough, Jenny," the man answered. "It's my decision and I've made it. Now see to it that the _Killifish_ is provisioned and its crew released from custody."

Clarkson raised his head slowly, turning to face the voices. "Hello?"

The two figures turned to him. He recognized the woman as Officer Jenny, but the other appeared to be a middle-aged Oriental. The seated man nodded to him. "Commander Clarkson, it's good to see you awake. Are you feeling better?"

The submarine captain didn't know quite how to respond to that, so he paused before speaking. He didn't remember ever telling any of the locals his actual rank.

The man looked more closely at him. "You are Lieutenant Commander Robert Clarkson, United States Navy, Submarine Forces Pacific, correct?"

"How did you…?" The naval officer gaped.

The older man smiled faintly. "All in good time, Mr. Clarkson. All in good time." He turned back to the police officer. "Jenny, that's all I needed to know to be sure. Now make sure the ship's crew is released and fed. They are our guests."

Still looking frustrated, Jenny nodded and turned on her heel, marching out of the room.

The older man turned back to Clarkson, who was still trying to figure out what had just happened. "Commander, please forgive Officer Jenny for her insistence on the letter of the law. Still, you have caused quite a mess—lying to customs, bringing a foreign warship into port…"

"Who are you?" Clarkson broke in, sitting up.

"My name is Koga," the man said. "I'm the gym leader and _ex officio_ leader here in Fuchsia City." He smiled. "I think the better question is, who are you? Tell me straight; I don't mind hearing it."

Clarkson laid back down for a moment, unsure exactly what to say. The man obviously knew, or had inferred, a great deal about him and his ship. Lying to the man who was apparently mayor might very well prove disastrous. At the same time, though, the true story was hardly believable. And yet, for some reason he felt Koga would believe him.

"Well, where to begin?" Clarkson raised himself back up. "We sailed from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on 25 March, 1945. It was my sixth war patrol in the Pacific; we were deployed off the coast of Japan." He looked up at the gym leader. "Any of this making sense to you?"

Koga didn't answer for a moment, something changing subtly in his expression, before his eyes flicked back to Clarkson. "Please, go on."

The submariner nodded. "On the night of 8 April, we passed through what I guess was a cloud of some sort, but unlike anything I've ever seen before. When we emerged, it was daylight and we were approximately 150 miles from here. We followed a radio signal that brought us to your port." He sighed. "That's about it."

"You said it was 1945?" Koga asked. "Three years since 1942?"

"Why—?" Clarkson began, but Koga's expression stopped him. "Yes. Three years."

"Three years," the older man repeated softly, leaning back in his chair. "It make sense."

For a long time, he said nothing, leaving Clarkson thoroughly confused. This interaction was certainly shooting holes in his 'another world' theory—by all indications, Koga was familiar with the war. The fact that someone who looked vaguely Japanese was questioning him about wartime movements was understandably disconcerting to the submarine captain, but again he felt strangely unafraid.

"Midway," Koga whispered. "That was what it was called. _Middou-ei_." He focused his eyes on Clarkson. "What happened there?"

"We won," Clarkson answered flatly. "Sent four aircraft carriers to the bottom."

"That…is most formidable of you, Captain," Koga replied. Unconsciously, the gym leader reached up and touched his left shoulder, a trace of ancient pain flitting across his gaze. "If you will allow me, I would like to tell you a story. I think you will find it enlightening.

Clarkson felt a hint a trepidation—there had been something in the older man's face as he had said that—but what choice did he have? "Go ahead."

888

"I don't think we're going to make it." Aviation Petty Officer Hiroki Saito turned his head to address the backseater. "I've got enough fuel for fifteen minutes before we go in."

"We're not done yet," the aircraft commander replied, unable to hide the quaver in his voice. This was, after all, Ensign Seiji Nomura's first combat mission, and the young flier didn't want to die.

Not like this. Not thousands of miles from his home, with limitless ocean in all directions, over an island that his parents didn't know existed. This was not how he had envisioned war. But after circling for almost an hour, searching for _Hiryu_, he had almost given up hope. In a few moments he would have to start planning for the inevitable ditch while they still had a little fuel left.

Reaching down, he patted the inside of the Nakajima B5N's fuselage. "Hold on, baby," he whispered. "Hold on."

The sun was setting in the west; soon the sky would turn dark. Twisting around, Seiji turned to the airman behind him. "Still nothing?"

"Not a peep." Radioman Ichiro Hayashi shook his head. "I think the radio might be broken."

Seiji exhaled slowly. _That's it,_ he thought. _We don't have a choice anymore._ Reaching forward, he clapped a hand on Saito's shoulder. "Saito, we have to ditch. Start setting up our approach, we'll come in low and slow, with the wind, and avoid any waves." He turned back again to Hayashi. "Make sure you're all strapped in! Stow everything loose!"

Slowly, the torpedo bomber descended under the careful control of Saito. Nomura looked around the cockpit, making sure they were ready for the emergency landing, before returning his gaze to the approaching ocean.

"_Fighters!_ Six o'clock high!" Hayashi shouted. Seiji whipped around and let his gaze follow the airman's pointing finger. Cold dread bubbled in his gut—American F4F Wildcats from the clouds!

"Evasive, now!" Seiji called out to Saito, but the pilot had already pulled the bomber into a sharp bank. It was no use, though—the two American fighters swooped downwards, pouring fire into the doomed plane. With a sound Seiji could only imagine coming from metal in a shredder, the bullets ripped through the once-graceful bomber, tearing apart its metal skin and reducing it to an unaerodynamic ball of scrap.

Nomura felt as if a red-hot poker had lanced through his left side, and he screamed in agony, shutting his eyes against the pain. Dimly he heard Saito yelling something, then the plane rocked violently and the world flashed white.

_We're doomed,_ Nomura thought, _we've bought it_. The B5N's engine began to sputter pitifully as the plane nosed over, heading for the water. _We're going in._ Seiji curled against the restraining harness, bracing himself for impact.

The crash knocked him senseless.

A bitter cold, wet sensation around his feet roused him from his stupor. Summoning the willpower to open his eyes, he saw that the plane was in the water, the sea up to the level of the cockpit. Inside, the flooding liquid was up to his knees and rising.

Panic rose up inside the young flier, overriding the pain from his side. Frantically, he reached for his restraints, realizing that his left arm would not obey his commands. Thrashing with his right arm, he hit the safety release as the water climbed up to his waist.

He was bathed in ice, his side on fire, and all around him the walls of the cockpit shrunk in, choking his life out inexorably with each passing moment. His heart beat so rapidly he felt it must burst from his chest. He had literally seconds to escape before he would drown horribly.

In the pilot seat, Saito was slumped over his controls, his face inches from the water. Seiji reached forward, shaking his friend. "Saito! Wake up, man! We've got to get out! Saito! _Hiroki!_"

Outside the plane, the water level had risen to near the top of the canopy. Seiji started to hyperventilate, trying hopelessly to get the petty officer out of his restraints with one arm. "_Hiroki! Wake the fuck up!_"

He was crying now; the water up to his chest as Saito's head went under. "_Wake up, you motherfucker!" _he screamed. "_Wake up!_"

There was no time left. There was no time left. The water was up to his neck, the surface of the ocean receding away above him. Gasping in a last breath, he punched furiously at the canopy, trying desperately to escape from the watery grave. Again and again, he slammed against the ceiling blocking his escape. Taking in a frantic breath, his lungs filled with water and he started to thrash uncontrollably, unable to break free from the prison that was taking him into the inky darkness.

Then, amazingly, he was free, swimming desperately for the surface. His lifejacket was pulling him up, up towards life-giving air. After what seemed like an eternity, his head broke the surface and he coughed out the seawater, sucking in air greedily even as hot tears stung his face.

He lay back on his back, gasping and crying. "Oh, God…Oh, God…" Turning his head around frantically he tried to see if, against all odds, Saito or Hayashi had made it out.

But no one else emerged from the watery depths, leaving Seiji Nomura, for the first time in his life, all alone.

He had lain in the water for what seemed like hours, semiconscious, dimply aware of the dull pain in his side and the cold embrace of the sea. Logical thought had long since abandoned him, and when he felt the gentle touch to his head, he looked to see if his mother was there.

She was not, and the creature that was nudging his head could not possibly exist…but that didn't matter anyways because he was dead.

He felt himself slowly dragged along, but he was sure he was hallucinating… The motion of the waves rocked him, rocked him like when he was a child, and he felt himself drifting into oblivion…

888

"I was washed onto the shore of this very city," Koga told him. "Thirty years ago. Lapras stayed by my side until someone came to get me." The man smiled. "And he's stayed with me ever since, my tribute to good and purity in a world without."

"Thirty _years_?" Clarkson gaped. "You've been here that long?"

"Yes," Koga nodded. "Imagine how I felt when I was addressed in English…!" He shook his head. "I was half-mad with grief and anger. If I had not been on the verge of death, I would have fought them." He caught Clarkson's gaze. "But thirty years is too long a time for a grudge."

"You are not my enemy, and I want to you to understand that," Koga said quietly. "Not here, not back there." He cleared his throat. "There was a time when I believed that patriotism surpassed morality; that in the quest of service for my country it was encouraged, even necessary, to abandon the idea of what is right. I see now that this is a fallacy."

"Therefore, I do not fight for country, or flag, or any other such thing. When I can avoid it, I do not fight at all. When I am pressed, though…"

"For thirty years, I have trained here as a _ninja_." He smiled knowingly at Clarkson. "I believe you can appreciate the terror of that which strikes unseen, silent, swift and deadly."

"But it is best that I remain hidden, in the meantime, in the persona I have created here as Koga." Koga spread his arms wide. "Here, in this world, the regional differences and values that would tear apart the world have not come to fruition. As long as Pokémon represent the dominant threat, then humanity must remain undivided by petty conflict."

"What about Earth?" Clarkson asked in disbelief. "Didn't you want to go home?"

Koga nodded. "For the longest time I did. At first I tried to find a way back, but I have found it to be hopeless. And then I came to the conclusions that I have discussed with you. As an Imperial aviator, I had little future…but here, here I can do something worthwhile."

The Japanese aviator's gaze was almost hypnotic. "And you, Richard Clarkson, will realize that, if you cannot go home, it is because you too have a purpose here. I survived, when my friends died. They died, but I lived. I cannot say for certain why, but I feel that we all have a purpose. I think you will find yours is here."

The ninja master offered Clarkson his hand, pulling him to his feet. "Go back to your ship, Commander Clarkson. Discuss what I have told you with your crew. There is much more that you must learn, and it is not pretty."


End file.
